Ratcheting Up Performance

Years ago, when my son was a young teenager, the two of us stood at the bottom of Tuckerman’s Ravine in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The plan was to hike up the ravine, over a saddle point near the top of Mt. Washington, and then to the Lake of the Clouds hut operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club where we would spend the night. We made it. We did not, however, try to jump to the top. We only did it by taking just one step at a time. This lesson also applies to the challenge facing the leadership team that seeks to improve the performance of its public agency. The team, too, can’t jump. It can’t jump from the nadir of the results valley to the apex of the results mountain. It can only make it up one step at a time.